It’s hard to believe it, but the end of the school year is quickly advancing and it’s time to start thinking about thank you gifts for teachers. I came up with this quick little project that is a great beginner embroidery project. It uses a little bit of felt and embroidery floss to mimic a old fashioned slate board. The perfect little gift to tuck into a little basket for your teacher.

Cut out the center rectangle of your sulky solvy pattern and peel of the back paper. Place it, sticky side down, onto the black felt rectangle.
All the text and the apple are stitched with 2 strands of white dmc embroidery floss using a backstitch. You can fill in the apple leaf with a few satin stitches if desired.

After you stitch your pattern, cut away as much of the sulky-solvy as you can. Follow the directions on the package and use water to soak it away.

Once your sulky-solvy has dissolved and your felt has dried, place your black rectangle centered on top of your brown rectangle. Use wonderclips or pins to hold in place.

Take 2 strands of black embroidery floss and stitch a tiny whipsitch all the way around your black rectangle.

Add it to a gift basket, wrap it up in a fun envelope and pass it off to your favorite teacher!

This spring I had the great joy of teaching a few Saturday sewing classes to some great girls and one of my favorite classes was our Build a Softie day. Last Sunday was Sew a Softie day around the world and while I’m a little late to the game I wanted to share this fun activity we did in our class. This is a great designing and sewing activity to fill these last, crazy hot days of summer before school starts up again.

Using your Design a Softie sheet, first figure out what shape body you want your softie to have. Using a sheet of printer paper, draw out the shape of the body (make sure to draw it a little bigger than you want it to be. This is called adding a seam allowance – that’s the little bit of fabric that is in the inside where you sewed the two pieces together) Repeat this process for the legs, wings, arms and the rest of the body parts you want to include. Remembering ever time to draw your pattern pieces a little bigger than you want them to be. Cut out your paper pattern.

Taking your fabric scraps and your paper pattern, cut out the pieces of your softie. Make sure you cut out 2 body parts (a front and a back), two wings, two arms/legs etc. For the ears I recommend using felt because it’s a bit stiffer and the ears will stand up by themselves.

Now decide if you want to add some trim to separate the head from the body. You can use ribbon, ric rac or even a strip of fabric. Pin this down to the front of your softie and take it to your sewing machine. If you know how to sew with a zig zag stitch, go ahead and sew this down with a wide zig zag straight down the middle of your trim piece. Repeat on the back of your softie (if you want).

Next up, decide what sort of face you want for your softie. Add some eyes, a nose or a beak and using a whipstitch or a running stitch sew these onto the front of your softie.

Now you need to sew your legs and arms. Match each leg up with it’s front and back with right sides facing (this means the backside of the fabric is showing). Sew a straight stitch on your sewing machine all the way around the sides – leave the top open. Check to make sure you don’t have any holes and once you’ve sewn all of them, flip them right side out. You might need to use a chopstick or a seam ripper to help you pull out all the edges.

Now take your arms and legs and pin them in place to the right side of the front piece of your softie. They should each be laying inside. Put the back piece on top – with right sides facing – and pin it to the top.

Sewing really slowly on your machine, sew a seam all around the outside of your softie. Make sure you leave an opening in the side for stuffing. I like to leave my hole on the side between the arm and the leg. Before you flip your softie right sides out, stick your hand in the hole and take out all the pins.

Then flip him right side out and your arms and legs should flip out! Go ahead and start stuffing. And stuff and stuff and stuff!